Between Biotics and Bio-Electricity
by AnxSoc
Summary: (Andromeda)(Poly) When Leanna opens up to her lover Liam Kosta about her growing feelings for their ally Jaal Ama Darav, a new arrangement must be navigated. Leanna is not monogamous, but he assumed she was. She is as serious about her love as ever, and it seems both the men in her life are willing to come to an arrangement. Assuming she can work out biotics and bio-electricity.
1. Chapter 1

An instant could change a lifetime. A millimeter to the right and she might not be here. Might not have shared a serene moment of clarity, or watched the heat drain from the Roekar resistance like a cracked reactor core. It was so hard to focus on the here and now when she kept revisiting his face, so certain, so ready to die for the sake of his people. Leanna Ryder realized in the instant she thought him dead, that she had already fallen for Jaal. But when he introduced her to his family, took her hand and lay with her staring up at a fabricated galaxy, she knew he had fallen in return.

"Are you here right now?" Liam asked, snapping his fingers in front of Leanna's eyes.

A bit of her broth sloshed from her cup as she leapt back into the present moment. "Damnit," She hissed, sucking the burned finger. "Sorry," she sighed, "I've… been thinking a lot lately."

"You said you wanted to talk to me." Liam crossed his arms, leaning against his workbench with a sly half-lidded expression she'd seen many times before. Usually it was when he was lounging around shirtless, inviting her to set her dinner down and take a quick sip of him instead. Seeing him half covered in engine grease, wearing his grungiest workshirt, she doubted that was what was on his mind right now.

"I-" She drawled on far too long, spilling the broth again as she swirled the cup nervously. "I do. It's… it's about Jaal."

"It's about how torn I am," She thought guiltily. "Between an insane infatuation with a man who came onboard espousing how much he expected us all to prove ourself as evil as the Kett, and a man who hasn't failed to make me laugh since the day I awoke from cold sleep…"

"Oh, yeah," Liam replied flatly, "He was asking about you, too."

"Oh?" Leanna sipped her broth, wincing at the bitter aftertaste of the extra electrolytes Lexi insisted she take daily.

"Yeah," he continued, arms still folded, gaze focused with a rare razor-sharpness. "What did he say?" Liam coughed, dropping his pitch in an obvious impersonation of their comrade, "'Am I correct to assume that holding hands has the same meaning for your people?'"

With a choking snort, she spit the broth across the room, speckling the steel plated wall. "HE-," She coughed to regain her breath, "He asked you THAT?!"

Liam finally smiled, one hand loosed from his chest enough to drum a tempo on his other elbow. "He did."

"Liam, I-" Leanna started.

"No, let me finish," He admonished, breathing in deeply before continuing, "I told him it did. And that you and I…" He stared back at her with a softened expression. "That we needed to talk."

"I had Jill remove my chemical blocker," Leanna blurted out, crimping the aluminum cup as her nerves spiked.

Liam flopped down on the couch, side-eyeing a new broth stain angled across the far arm pad. "Fat load of good that will do you with an _Angaran_."

Leanna finally smacked the cup down on the edge of his workbench, where at least the stray liquid could be cleaned up. "Will you just let me explain-"

"I thought we were 'serious', Leanna," Liam interrupted. "But if you want Jaal-"

"I want you BOTH!" She shouted over him, before clapping a hand over her mouth and shooting a paranoid glance to the blessedly soundproofed, air-tight door.

Liam stared, mouth hanging open a little as he guffawed, "Both…? What? At the same time?... In.. in the same room-" humor cracked through the flatline of his brows. He smirked behind a thoughtful hand raised to his upper lip. "I didn't think you were that kind of kinky-"

"You don't know me very well," Leanna rebutted before she could shut-down her knee-jerk sarcasm. "I mean, besides, you've seen way more of Jaal naked than I haavveee...uhm." Her mind reeled back to that strange encounter with a bizarre clarity. The wide canyon between her culture and Jaal's was never more clear than the way the Angaran had strode out without an ounce of nervousness as he bore his privates to public scrutiny.

"As," she coughed, her cheeks on fire as she turned back to Liam, "You've seen AS MUCH as I have, I mean-"

A long silence drew out between them. It was her turn now to stand, muscles clenched as she closed her arms over her chest, picking at the bottom edge of her shirt from beneath her arm. As she took in the distant chill of his expression, a way through finally struck her.

She leaned over him, propping herself on her fingertips, sliding slowly down from his knees. "This feels good, right?"

Furtively, he glanced up at her. "Course," He grunted softly as her hands cupped the outside of his hips, her breath inches from his. "But I thought I signed up to be more than just a _sperm donor_."

"You are," She crooned. "Now, this?" She held a palm lightly over his right arm. "How does THIS feel?"

He blinked slowly back at her, before risking a quick glance down at her hand. "Um… doesn't feel like anything? What's this game now?"

"It's a small mass effect field," She whispered. Drawing her fingertips across her face, the skin first reacted fluorescent pink, and then bright cyan before returning back to her 'natural' dark shade of umber. Between vitiligo treatments, scar-reduction implants, and SAM's handiwork, her cheeks felt like more a touch screen than skin cells to her. She had long ago learned that she could alter it with a gentle pass of her biotic fields.

He squinted at her like she had assigned him a pop quiz, before his expression finally relaxed. "Oh, I think I'm getting this now."

"I should have…" She licked her lips, staring down at the hand that was still pulsing a quiet, invisible melody in folded space-time against the edge of his arm. " _WE_ … should have… talked about me a little more before I said I wanted 'serious'."

"Are you breaking up with me?" Liam asked plainly.

With a pained sniff, Leanna choked out, "No! I love you, Liam Kosta…" She wiped snot from her nose and looked deep into his eyes before asking, "Do you want to break up with _me_?"

"No," He replied gently, finally leaning in to pull her towards him by the seams of her pants. With a rumbling growl, he buried his face into her collarbone, and inhaled deeply. "Alright. I think I'm starting to get it. We're all working together all the time. I've seen this kind of thing in crisis management. Emotions can heat up when the adrenaline is this high-"

"Liam," Leanna called, gently tilting his head up to face hers as he squeezed her to him. "I'm not _cheating_ on you. That's not what this is. I need you to… understand something about me."

"What then?"

"I'm not monogamous," She whispered hoarsely. A dozen broken relationships, and six-hundred years through dark space didn't make it the explanation any easier. You'd think she'd have note cards and slide shows by now.

"I mean, relationships aren't easy for anyone-" Liam countered.

"I will never BE monogamous," She continued, hands cupping his cheeks as she frowned.

His eyes wandered, suddenly lost, "What? I mean-"

"I need to tell you one more thing, Liam. I need you to understand. _I. LOVE_. _YOU_. How many other people have you heard me say that to?"

He licked his lips as he looked to the ceiling, like he was back in primary school, being asked to explain how to divide fractions. "I… no one, honestly."

He finally settled his gaze back on her, and blinked uncertainly. "You… you hadn't even said it to me… until now."

"And how many people have I slept with since you asked me if we were 'serious' ?"

He cracked a smirk despite the tension, "I'm starting to wonder."

"None."

"Okay…" He nodded slowly. "Andromeda's a…. A new galaxy, yeah? What does this mean. For us, I mean?"

"It means, I feel something for Jaal almost as strong as I feel for you. " She inhaled deep and slow, and forced the breath out despite a grimace. "But… If you told me, right now, that you didn't want me to approach Jaal, I wouldn't."

He huffed as he placed his head back against her chest, his breath warm and moist over her breasts as he contemplated. As he remained there silently, she felt his hands slowly drawing lines past the seams, fingertips staking claim to the soft joint between her thighs and hips. She spent so long in training, forced march in a powersuit, or on reduced rations, it felt like the only spare bit of pudge she had left some days. And Liam was sneaky enough to already know if he squeezed there-

"Stop avoiding the subject!" Leanna gasped as he squeezed into the plump bottom of her butt, pulling her hips forward until her knees were locked into the crevice of the cushions and her mound was square against the bulging fly of his sweatpants.

Fingers locked into his hair, she bit her lip until the steady pressure of his hands pinning them together drove her to moan into his fro. It seemed to be what he was waiting for, as he finally answered, "Okay."

"That easy?" She panted, wiggling her hips against his until she could hear the distraction in the delay of his words.

"Sure. I mean I trust you," He chuckled before pulling her into a deep kiss, breaking away just as fast. "But, ah," He pushed her to arms length as he fought for breath, "I'm still plugged up, you know?"

She blinked a few times before she realized what he meant, and snorted at him happily, "You don't have to unlock the safety on your gun right away, goober."

"And I guess I don't have to worry about an alien knocking you up-"

She punched him hard in the arm, and shoved him sideways on the couch. Before he could catch his breath, she had found the perfect spot to straddle him where even a slight adjustment of her legs meant one agonizing tease after another.

"Liam Kosta," Leanna tutted. "Are you getting _snide_ with a superior officer?"

"Pulling rank now?" Liam grinned like a fool, until she rocked her waist forward, rubbing up his length with a heat that left him speechless.

She winced as she leaned over him, placing a hand to each of his wrists to press his arms to his sides.

"What?" He replied to her absent frown.

"It's just," she leaned down to whisper in his ear, "you got me so wet, I think both our pants are going to have to go in the wash."

With a twist of his wrists, his hands were free, his thumbs in her belt-loops before she could adjust to the rise of his knee. "Well, I can fix THAT, at least."

Her shirt slid over her head in one sinuous cross of her arms. With an arch of her hips and backwards tumble Liam was able to pull her pants down to her calves, before he stopped to stare.

"Do you always walk the Tempest in commando?"

Leanna's face tinged magenta as she flicked him a wicked smile, "Course. Have you _seen_ initiative-issue underwear?"

"I did once," He crooned as slid his hand along her slit , pressing intently along the edges of her labia at a speed slow enough to make her whimper. "I recall you weren't so panty-free when you first jumped my bones.

"Was I?" Leanna winced as he continued to stroke from top to bottom and back again as an excruciatingly stalled pace.

Grunting impatiently, she fell back against the armrest opposite him and pointed back to him. "Pants off, Mr. Kosta."

He chuckled, fumbling to loosen the drawstring and shift the waistband down as the six-hundred year old springs and cushions wobbled beneath him. Soon the the wretched clothing was discarded, just before he finally lost his balance and fell forward against Leanna's chest with a distressed grunt.

"Ow. Liam, my spleen-"

"Sorry, heh, couches, right?"

"... Please tell me you aren't keeping that disgusting shirt on?"

"What?" Liam smirked as he pressed his chest to hers, "Are you saying motor oil and conductive fluid don't turn you-"

"OFF!" She snapped, tugging the shirt over his head before he could finish laughing at her disgust. She threw it backwards without a glance. They both cringed as it produced a clang, something large dragged downwards, and finally a sharp, brittle smash.

He leaned forward to see as she went rigid with fright, before he eased back down to his comfortable spot pressed chest-to chest between her legs. "Nothing I can't fix," He murmured, silencing her concerned protest by locking his lips to hers and grasping a breast in hand.

Between the thrill of him gently rolling her nipple between his thumb and forefinger and the hungry way his tongue fought with hers, she hardly felt him positioning his length between her legs until he broke the kiss just long enough to whisper, "Can I?"

She answered by leaning forward and taking his earlobe in her teeth, and pulling him forward by the pressure of her mouth alone. All it took was a hummed acknowledgement between her lips and he thrust in with a purpose.

She nibbled a little longer. The few times they had run back to third base, she had tried a few more new tricks on him, but the ears had always been like a launch button for the poor man. Not that she was complaining as he returned to kissing her deeply between ragged breaths.

Liam was a master of playful deflection and targeted questions most of the time, but in bed? The man was amazingly direct. When he wasn't leaned down to plant a quick bite on her nipples or suffocating her in a breathy kiss, his eyes were laser-focused on hers. Locking eyes with him made her feel like she had never left the Milky Way. Like the whole of the Pathfinder initiative was a bad dream, the Kett a terrible nightmare and all the uncertainty of terraforming and entire nebula a bad movie script.

"I'm close," He muttered against her shoulder.

"Bring it," She grinned back at him, biting her lip as she reached down to stroke her clit. He could always tell when she did that. He would squint at her with an expression she'd seen in her male lovers before. That look that meant, "Shouldn't I be doing that?"

She dissolved it in her usual manner, by slapping him on the ass and hissing into his ear to fuck her harder. Liam hadn't complained before, and he didn't now, panting next to her ear as they rutted faster than before, locked together so tight it felt like the skin of her chest might tear if they moved any faster.

Her blood was rising, heat flushing over her chest and through her cheeks as she pitched her head back and howled.

"Come for me," He repeated, lips brushing over her neck as he thrust. A tingle washed over her, from her feet and her stomach and neck, mind focused on holding him close to her as her toes twitched in time to each stroke of her clit, each thrust of his cock pushing her past the orgasm and into a half-painful plateau.

He gasped as he finally finished, a few shakey thrusts more before he lifted his head up, their chests pulled apart with a sticky 'pop' that immediately sent them both into giggles. He leaned down to kiss her once, twice, and laughed as she laughed, smothering her laugh in another kiss that she still giggled through.

"You're not half bad at that, Liam." She panted.

"That's it," He scoffed, reaching over for a pillow to smother her with.

She fought back playfully, regaining her freedom from under the pillow by fighting dirty and tickling his sides until he fell off the couch.

They lay there a while, regaining their breath with her arm dangled off the edge, delicately touching his hand that rested at the baseboard below the cushions.

Liam looked at her sidelong for a long time as she gazed at him through half-closed lids. Eventually he glanced away, "I'll… talk with Jaal."

"About getting to … 'know him better'?" Leanna propped herself up on her elbows and stared at him wide-eyed. "You will?"

Liam keeps looking away, "Yeah. He can't think you're sneaking around behind my back. Or that… I'm gonna challenge him to some kinda _duel of honor_ over you."

"Oh yes," she chuckled, "we need to make sure he knows we left all that dueling at ten paces and lynching loose women in our old galaxy." Leanna sighed as the joke obviously didn't change the stern set of Liam's expression, "But you'll need some time?"

Liam: "Yeah," he murmured, staring at something far past the ceiling. Yeah… it's gonna be weird for a while."

He tugged her down to the rug next to him, where she snuggled close to wedge his arm between her breasts as she nestled her head against his shoulder. In turn he rested his chin on the top of her head. She yawned, "But it's always best to just get the weird out in the open, yeah?"


	2. Shock to the System

_"I was really worried," She had confided as Jaal evaded saying anything more about his brush with death._

 _He simply replied, "It will heal. All scars do," and pulled her face to his. Their foreheads touched, and a warm wave of energy washed past her eyes. It was instinctual to respond in kind, to put her hand up to his neck as he did for her. She was tall as human women came but it was a stretch to match him._

 _As they stood there in that brief moment, she realized she had become entangled with him in a way she never planned._

"Two rules," Liam had told her the day after her anxious reveal. He'd had more time to think, and it wouldn't be the last of his rules. She welcomed them, because no lines meant everyone would always be on edge.

"Shoot," She'd responded.

"Ah. Rule one. One at a time? Please don't take my approval as an excuse to start a harem."

She guffawed in response, "Where would I keep them?!"

"Turn down the snark for a moment, hun. This is … gonna take some adjusting and I'd like to know that I only have ONE person to avoid on the ship, okay?"

"I think I can control myself," Leanna smirked.

"Two. And this one," He paused to tilt his head in that way he did when he had something important to explain. "There's no… subtle way to say this."

"Again," She crossed her arms, "Shoot?"

"No other… men? Okay?" He frowned slightly, like he was suddenly embarrassed. " _Human_ men, I mean-"

For once, she caught the message and jumped ahead. She pulled his hand into hers, and cupped her other hand over it, pulling his arm slowly to her chest. "The only father I want for my future children is you, Liam."

His face cracked into a goofy smile, and he kissed her lightly, plucking her lips with his as he drew away. "That makes things easier."

That was days ago and since then what little she'd seen between Liam and Jaal had become surprisingly courteous. The mere sight of the cool politeness made her back prickle, but whatever discussion they had worked out, seemed to stay silently between them.

She herself hadn't said much to Jaal yet. It was easy enough to avoid anyone on the Tempest when you had a private suite and everything linked into your neural net. She could always pull up an overlay of everyone's position in her right eye if she chose. The long haul from Aya to Elaaden gave her time for a personal side project. One she was hoping to advance before she had look Jaal in the eyes again.

Leanna tapped the output commands of her omni-tool insistently, until the bar lowered from 'lethal' to the bare minimum, and then removed the external cuff entirely.

It could never be fully removed. Between the biotic transmission implants she'd received as a teenager, the hardware put in during Cryo to help her interface with the Pathfinder team's technology, and the workover they'd woven through her to hook her up to SAM (and reboot her brain), the vast majority of the omni-tool's components were inside of her now.

Besides, removing them would probably kill her, like yanking the power supply from a server. Thin trails of light bloomed from her fingertips to her forearms and then back as she coaxed a mass effect field through her body. Most soldiers were taught the big stuff. "Launch a tiny black hole at that guy." or "Punch that lady in the face with five G's behind your gauntlet." or the classic, "Shove and energy shield out as hard and fast as you can and hope they all snap their necks on the way down."

Inelegant and inefficient displays, but most soldiers loved the flare of it. Being able to embed a training dummy in a concrete wall had earned her dozens of drinks and a few quick flings over the years. When insomnia gripped her between guard shifts she found herself idly spinning chess pieces in the air of the rec halls, overlooking miles of optimistic holes in the dig site where they still hadn't uncovered prothean artifacts after months of effort.

The thought lingered, "We know how _large_ Mass Effect fields can go… but how _small_ could they go?"

As her left hand crackled quietly, she felt certain the answer was going to be, "Pretty damned small."

She pointed her finger like a gun, expecting to see the long arch of a spark, but instead, her hand simply crackled, and the rod she'd set in the middle of a rubber floor mat remained stationary.

A quick flick, a flailing shake, a punch to the air. Nothing seemed to bridge the gap from skin to metal. Kneeling down, she squinted at the foot-long piece of copper indignantly.

For another half-hour she meditated, she waved her hands around, rubbed her temples, and then began to pace around the room adjusting every omni-tool setting she could imagine. As she breathed out calmly and closed her eyes, she heard the soft clink of metal stress, and opened her eyes to see the rod levitating slowly up from the ground with a familiar violet aura about it.

Momentarily enraged, she launched the whole mat and contents at the bay window. A moment after that, she was started by the shrill beep of a warning sensor, and Kallo's voice stammering over the intercom, "Ryder? There's a damage report in your room, are you-"

"I'm fine," Leanna groaned, rubbing her hands down her temples, knowing what Addison meant now by always saying 'her face was tired'."

Swiping her hand across the clear aluminum of the bay windows just left a translucent smear of oil across the surface. It did nothing to obscure the hairline scratch now running from the center up towards the ceiling.

With a drawn-out growl of annoyance at herself, she began picking up the odds and ends she'd smashed, piling the bent copper rods, the spare (now broken) arduino and fragments of the omnitool's faceplate that had scattered on impact, all back on the rubber mat which was one-hundred-percent okay. Turns out rubber was pretty resilient against biotic forces.

"Maybe that's why all the Asari mercs back in the Milky way looked like they clothed themselves at fetish shops?" She snarked. Pursing her lips, she stared down at the small pile and began to grimace. "What am I doing…?"

"ELECTRONS CARRY ENERGY BETWEEN ATOMS-" SAM's hollow voice echoed from the console at her desk and between her ears simultaneously.

"Thanks," She drawled. "Very helpful."

"THAT IS," He continued in a slightly lower, soothing pitch, "ENERGY FLOWS NOT IN ONE DIRECTION. BUT IN both DIRECTIONS, SIMULTANEOUSLY."

Mid-way through a new snark she stopped, and looked down at the crumpled copper rods. Picking one up in each hand, she tried again to bridge a visible arc between them. The jolt that ensued knocked her to her back, put spots in front of her eyes and a throbbing pain pounding up and down both arms, pulsing irritability in both elbows.

It also left her gasping for air, pounding her chest like SAM had shut off her heartbeat all over again.

"LEVELING CARDIOVASCULAR SIGNALS-" SAM explained over the roar of blood in her ears.

As she lay on the ground gulping in deep breaths, he continued, "IF I MAY ADVISE? I KNOW YOU ARE SEEKING TO INITIATE INTERCOURSE WITH THE ANGARAN JAAL, PERHAPS YOU SHOULD APPROACH HIM FOR GUIDANCE INSTEAD-"

Leanna groaned as she covered her eyes, "Please don't ever say the word _'INTERCOURSE'_ again. Ughh-"

"NOTED," SAM quipped. "CONTINUING- IF INTIMACY IS THE INTENDED RESULT, THEN PERHAPS CONVERSATION IS THE BEST COURSE OF ACTION?"

Leanna sighed, "Of course."

SAM continued, "FROM WHAT I HAVE LEARNED FROM YOU AND YOUR FATHER, IT SEEMS THAT HUMANS FAIL MOST WHEN THEY ATTEMPT TO WORK ALONE, RATHER THAN SEEKING AID."

She huffed, then rocked back up to her feet, and laughed under her breath, "Fine. This won't be awkward _at all._ "

"SARCASM NOTED."


	3. A Dry Spell

_"You are a lovely woman. Fascinating. A brilliant risk taker. Knowing you better would be a gift. Sincerely."_

He'd said that to her when she tripped into bluntly asking him how he felt about her. That was before the showdown with Akksul, before they faced off against the Archon, and before she had died a second time.

They had both proven themselves to be risk-takers. For her part, she didn't think her leaps of faith were quite as "brilliant" as his, except when they were literally throwing sparks, as they did when she tried once more to let the electromagnetic field he was projecting flow through her.

With a quick snarling grunt, he backed away, spreading his hands across the workshop table in the engineering lab. "No, you're trying to force it. You need calm," the final soft vowel rolling off his tongue with that little echo that her translator always seemed to throw into his voice.

"Calm, okay," She grimaced until it became a smile and put her hands out again, hovering the fingertips of her hands ever-so-close to each other..

But instead of instructing her again, he placed his hands over hers, and peered at her intently. "Why are you so adamant about this?"

She searched his inscrutable expression for a hint of what his words always portrayed. Where was that tenderness he had revealed in his childhood dwelling? Where was the endearing gaze she'd caught when he thought she was still looking up at the stars? With a lip she didn't realize was trembling, she stammered, "You said you wanted to us to be _together_."

He laughed, rubbing a thumb from her aching knuckles down to her wrist. "I did not mean this very _instant_." With a firm touch he drew his hands up to inspect them, and looked noticeably pained by the branching dark red blisters that traveled along her arms like roots.

He turned his gaze back up to hers, and his eyes widened slightly. "What HAVE you been getting up to, my dearest?"

"I've been trying to make electricity," She winced as he tested the burns with a faint prod of his fingertips.

"Make?" He parroted. "You are already making electricity. Why would you need to make _more_?"

"I wanted to… I don't know?" She floundered, shrinking under his scrutiny. "You said your people produce electricity, and you can interact with it, and it's strong enough to hurt people, and I assumed-"

He broke into laughter taking on a chastising tone as he continued to massage her knuckles, "You thought we shocked each other for fun, perhaps?"

Leaning away from his grip, she continued, "I.. um.. Yeah that was dumb, wasn't it? I don't know what I was thinking-"

Sarcastically, she thought, "Humans have been shocking each other for fun since electricity was invented back on earth, and we didn't even HAVE biotic glands or sub-dermal nodes to excuse ourselves then!"

"You were thinking you could surprise me?"

She nodded dumbly, wincing as he pulled her back upright. A few of the lines had broken, the thin skin now oozing clear fluid, displaying bright pink inflamed skin beneath standing stark against the healthier dark skin around the lightning burns.

"My feelings for you are not mere... novelty," He soothed as he nudged her towards the door. "Are yours?"

"No!" She snapped. She meekly allowed him to lead her the short distance down to Lexi's medical lab. Descending the ladders were the worst part. Each time she gripped a rung the blisters flexed and her nerves screeched.

Lexi gawked at her arms the moment the doors parted, and glared accusingly to Jaal.

"Wasn't him," Leanna sighed. "All me."

SAM interrupted Lexi's beratement to explain: "The Pathfinder was attempting to create bio-electricity to-"

Leanna cringed, "NOT helping, SAM."

"I'll leave you in the doctor's capable hands," Jaal chuckled.

"Run while you can!" Leanna joked, right before Lexi unceremoniously splashed the really burny variety of disinfectant over her arms.

[A week later, cruising over the wastes of Elaaden]

The nomad was running scalding hot, hitting the dunes at almost 150 KPM as it launched over another high dune. The mission was going swimmingly. That is to say, the heat converter in the Nomad had cracked when they slipped off a cliff while trying to outrun a herd of Echidnas. Then they had been shot at by two dozen gattling lasers after turning the wrong way down a canyon they could definitely mark as Exile scavengers now.

"Least the hull plating's intact?" Peebee ventured cautiously, thumping a fist against the exterior wall as they bumped over the rise of another sand dune. It replied with an unsettling whine of high-tension metal that left everyone cowed for a moment.

"We should have stopped to say _hello_. I wouldn't mind stretching my legs… and their necks."

"No stretching!" Leanna shouted over the incessant environmental noise. We're leaking fuel or something- my gauges are dropping FAST!"

"Are we going to have time to stop by that remnant site I got a reading on-"

"NOPE," Ryder quipped.

"What about that site that Vorn wanted us to grab some samples or something-" Drack snorted.

"Double Nope."

"I have a bad feeling about-" Jaal began, cut off by a blaring staccato beeping that drowned out everything in the cabin.

[Five days earlier, on the Tempest]

The bandages itched. Whatever antibiotic Lexi had sprayed on her felt like it was gluing her arm hairs to the nylon wrapping and each time a swinging arm struck her hip it was like ripping off a band-aid again. Compounded with the lecture that Lexi had belted out a top speed without pausing for breath, and now every square inch of Leanna was on high alert.

Jaal was already waiting at the edge of the Crew cabin near her quarters as she tried to slink back to solitude. "I should apologize," he began, wringing his hands around a translucent tube. "I should have explained sooner-"

With a wave of her hand and a cringe, she interrupted, "It was my decision. Even if it was a bloody stupid decision."

"Well," he cleared his throat, "I have something for you. A salve. I made it myself. I checked the ingredients with your doctor's files, and SAM."

SAM chimed in explain in sachrin tones, "98% OF THE CONTENTS ARE INERT PROTEINS AND FATTY ACIDS. ALL ARE INERT MOLECULES DUPLICATED ACROSS THE MILKY WAY AND HELEUS CLUSTERS. THE REMAINING 2% ARE ALOE AND CROSS-CHECKED PLANT EXTRACTS-"

Jaal cut him off with an indignant huff, and handed her a vial as small as her pinky finger. "And this. This is simply a present. An extract I thought might… blend well with your chemistry. In Angaran is roughly means… ' _Caged starlight'._ "

"Thank you," She smiled, scratched the edge of a bandage idly, and then immediately regretted it.

[Back on Elaaden]

"I am really regretting your 'short cut', Peebee!" Leanna growled between teeth as she tried to find the source of the blaring warning.

"Oh, yeah, blame me, it's okay! We Asari are used to envy, sugar!"

"This argument is not helping!" Jaal snarled, now looking over the multitude of dash lights with her. He found the culprit before she did, and pressed the engine fire suppression button, immediately stalling the cabin air flow and dimming the lights as the nomad coasted downwards.

They peered around in the red glow, before the systems all hummed back on just before they lurched into a rock. Jaal fell against the passenger side dash and then they both ricocheted towards the steering column. Peebee had no more than a seatbelt burn and Drack cussed aloud as he removed himself from where his armor had wedged into the interior roll cage.

The sudden stop had jolted them, but after she and Jaal were back upright, neither seemed bruised past their egos. Leanna immediately started to look at the panel readouts, and frowned.

"Since we're stopped," Peebee mused, "Can we talk about the _smell_ in here? I'm not feeling any air, and I'm sure that real soon it won't be pleasant to be next to the Krogran-"

Drack laughed loud and sharp and sneered back at Peebee, "Krogan don't sweat, blueberry. If it doesn't smell like a dead Karkan it ain't _me._ "

Ryder tugged at the neckband of her armor, but the molded foam was unyielding. The exterior plates were a mass of peltier tiles but they would only help so long as she had enough life support power to keep them pushing cool air out. Already sweat was beading up on her face. She snapped open her wrist-guard and withdrew Jaal's vial, tipping it to her neck to dab each side.

She continued to stare at the readouts and try to think of some way to adjust for the bad news she was seeing on every sensor, but-

Peebee continued to speculate, "Well Jaal is literally a basket of roses, and I showered just this morning-"

"It's me, okay?!" Leanna snarled back. "It's hot, I'm gross, and I'm sweating like a pile of pigs. I grew up in an air conditioned tin can spinning around in space, okay?! I don't. DO. HEAT."

Peebee just blinked in astonishment as the Pathfinder turned back to the gauges.

[Three days earlier, on the Tempest]

With his hands facing palm-up, she hovered hers palms down towards his. Her hands were dwarfed by his, and seemed even darker next to the brilliant blue on his skin. It was funny to see that his species had lighter pigment to the inside of their hands, the same way humans did.

"Now, simply try to feel the current. You must remember you have to let the energy _flow_. It is not a strike like a weapon. It is… like a river," he instructed.

Leanna closed her eyes, tried to sense something. Behind her eyelids she was immediately thinking again of the day that Liam and Jaal had been practicing 'diplomacy' to learn what subjects were taboo. Something was starting to happen; a sensation like sparkling wine was inching up her arms, impeded by odd bouts of heat and little prickles of pain.

With a giggle of excitement, she wriggled her hands a little, and an arc of light snapped from her hand to Jaal's. She yelped and pulled back, sticking her fingers into her mouth.

Jaal sighed with exasperation, "We can stop, for now, you don't have to-"

He was stopped by the rattle of her slamming her fists into the workbench. "No!" Leanna growled, "I want to try again! If I can take down the Archon's flagship, this should be a piece of CAKE-!" She sniffed as her nose plugged up. Angry tears were already welling in her eyes as she dragged her nails against the fabricated tabletop with a crackle.

Jaal withdrew his hands from the table with a pained longing in his eyes. "Yes… and I had to watch you die to do it."

"I," Leanna tried to start, but was stopped by the phlegm running back down her throat, and the hot blur of tears running down the sides of her nose. "I know… but I just… I just want to be able to make you feel _good_."

"You don't-"

"I want to," She sniffed. "I want to make you feel as good as you make me feel, just.. Like this-" She swung around the edge of the table and stood close to him, clasping his hand into hers.

"Did you get something in your eyes?" He asked distractedly. This close she could hear his heartbeat, growing faster like hers.

"I, no-" She rubbed her face distractedly. "I'm just crying… don't Angara cry?"

He looked down at her with a confused blink. She realized the futility of asking if he knew a word he didn't know. For a moment she was back at the Kett station on Voeld, shaking warily as Jaal growled with a rage she'd never seen him display before or since. As they learned of exaltation he had bellowed from the deep guttural pain of an animal to the roaring anger of a feral beast.

But no tears, even as he sounded close to weeping. She couldn't help it. The tears came faster as she thought about that terrible day. The look he'd given her as she ordered the compound destroyed was so cold. It surprised her every day afterwards that she didn't wake up with his knife at her throat, considering the promise he'd given her when they first met.

"You don't, I guess," She sniffled, her face drawn close to his hand as guilt drew her into herself. The salt dribbled into the edges of her mouth as she grimaced in distaste. It was funny how serene and calm women in vids always looked. Real tears made you ugly. Sorrow crushed you up like a used wrapper.

"Hmmm," He contemplated softly, "It is strange," He wiped at the edge her eye with one hand, felt the tear between his fingers, before dabbing it to his lips. Suddenly all she could think about was Suvi explaining the lick test that sent her running to Lexi's office.

"Alkaline and acid," He mused. As she had gotten over her small breakdown, she finally realized she had her head against his chest, hypnotized by the sound of his heartbeat. It was the nearest she had gotten to him since she had met his family. The Angara were so free with their feelings and desires. Maybe she should have just said, "Can I have a hug?" Instead.

"What are you thinking?" She whispered.

"Here," He nudged her away from him, just far enough to get his arms around her, fingertips lightly touching her shoulder-blades. "You are upset. You are trying too hard. Don't think about this. Don't try to respond. Just let go."

She nodded, wondering if she should tell him how she liked her shoulder massages, when her neck went stiff. She could feel the current tensing up all the muscles of her upper back, throwing her head back just before they loosened again. If his hands weren't already there, she might have fallen backwards from the speed that her body went slack. All her weight limped into his grip, and he turned them both to lean down into his work chair. Slowly, he extricated his hands from her shoulders. As he passed the edge of her tank top and brushed past her armpit, she let out a lusty gasp, as the relaxing energy expanded across her chest, flowing through her in cascading ripples like rain over dry ground.

Even zero gravity hadn't made her feel this at peace. She couldn't see what expression his was making, aside from hearing a satisfied hum from his lips as he continued down the underside of her arms. Consciousness faded away somewhere between her triceps and her fingers, because she awoke to find herself back in her quarters, propped up on her couch with a blanket tucked around her.

A new email blinked insistently from the screen on the opposite wall. When she brought it up on her omni-tool, it read:

 _If I can give you peace, then I am full of joy. If I can see your face full of joy like that again, then I would be truly happy. I desire to see your desires fufilled. There is time to continuing practicing._

 _For now, my Dearest, please rest._

 _-Jaal_

[Back on Elaaden]

The fuel leakage was stabilized, sort of. They had wrapped some self-healing tape around the cracked line and released some of the steam and pressure that had built up from a rock getting into the wrong valve at the wrong time. It was difficult to admit to everyone that they had lost too much and released too much pressure, and now there wasn't enough to actually get them back to the Tempest, or even the nearest forward station.

She had settled on barrelling towards the best crossroads of their destinations, and explaining the situation when it became impossible to stall longer.

"So, Peebee," Jaal said absently, "I'm still confused about these 'non-specific erogenous zones.'"

"Yikes," Was all Peebee could respond. She could feel the Asari's eyes bouncing between them.

She heard a Drack snorted a chuckle as she launched a glare back into the passenger block. It only took a moment away from the control board, mind drifting to their week of small experiments, for the nomad to veer off into trouble. The whole nomad shook as they impacted something softer but more adamant than a rock.

A howling screech echoed from beneath them as the whole vehicle drifted right, then left, and then lurched almost 90 degrees horizontally on three wheels before swerving and settling to a halt.

A few moments later they all burst from the cabin, noxious smoke rolling out after them as they scrambled to fresher air. They all caught their breath from coughing out electrical smoke, and set about inspecting the giant ugly lizard that was now roadkill beneath the Nomad.

"Now what, fearless leader?" Peebee grimaced.

"Okay," She squinted up to the sky, flicking her eyes right to bring up SAM's interactive displays. "We're not as far as I would have liked, but it'll do. Drack, Peebee, head to this nav-point to establish the next forward station. Tell Kallo to send down Gil. We'll need the Nomad fixed up to pick it up in a fly by.

"And what will you two be doing?" Drack smirked a little too knowingly for Leanna's taste.

She grimaced, and threw a strap over her shoulder with a satchel of electronics rattling back and forth. "Jaal and I will head to the FTL comm station. Right now we're too far out for anything else to do good until we get planet-scale communication established."

They all looked down as her omnitool bleated petulantly. "And I only have about an hour of life support in this heat." She wiped a layer of sweat from her brow before she affixed her helmet in place. She continued through their linked comms, "Which is a hell of a lot longer than we would have lasted two months ago before the vault was reset."

"A forward station?" Peebee eyed her sadly. "Really?"

"Well, it's not like shoving a few encryption drives into an FTL comm tower is a challenge for YOUR skills," Leanna shrugged.

Peebee preened a little, and tossed her head back. "True, I guess we can't sit here staring at a dead Nomad… err… leaking... things."

Leanna sighed. "If only Liam was here. He could probably fix it in the field…"

She taps a few things on her omnitool, and looked to the sky.

"We'll still need some repairs before the Nomad can return to the Tempest. Make sure Gil gets here okay."

Peebee squinted as she put her hands to her hips, "Why _not_ send Liam then? He's more field qualified anyhow-?"

"It's… personal."

"Really-"

"We're heading to the tower now," Leanna snapped. She collapsed her rifle into the embedded holster of her suit and holstered her sidewinder before turning away. "Remain in radio contact."


	4. Hot and Heavy

_In you culture, is "dearest" too strong a word to use when two people are fond of each other? And is "fond" too strong a word to use when two people enjoy flirting with each other?_

 _I enjoy you. Even now. I smile picturing your face. Angara are free with our emotions, and it feels normal for me to lay mine at your feet. I hope this is not too strange for your species and that you can comfortably accept them._

 _I enjoy you-but more than that, I adore your strength and courage and beauty._

How did she respond to his unguarded affection? Never before had she been approached in such a genuine manner.

Earth space-ports mainly followed the the coasts. Of Leanna's many visits with her family, none had wandered past the N7 and military installations and surroundings. Her memories of the human "home planet" were full of far-off beaches she barely got to visit, and a days at a time spent in sterile air-conditioned transfer stations before they would inevitably return to the Citadel. There the air was still filtered to death, but the rest of her surroundings were filled to bursting with a dozen different aliens forms of life as races conducted business amidst a hundred world biome settings.

Unlike Elaaden, no one ever set the station settings to 'broil on high until done'. Even after the reset it was still hotter than she could stand without constant aid. There was a faint blip in her ear every 3 minutes like clockwork to inform her of just how far down her life support suit systems had drained. SAM and Liam had commented on previous missions that she drained them faster than anyone else. Her body couldn't keep up with the Heleus cluster's conditions. Not after the first twenty years of her life were on stations, or for the last five before cryo sleep, on a chilly planet that was only hospitable to working outside during the summer months when the sun hardly set on their dig sites.

Jaal seemed almost non-plussed. He also seemed surprisingly dry considering that the vault reset quadrupled the humidity on the planet from a stark two percent to nearly twenty within weeks.

"How do you do it?" She panted.

"Do _what_?"

"Stand this heat… you're not even sweating!"

He laughed quietly, and adjusted his weapon strap. "We don't sweat like you do. It's more of a mucus-"

"Nevermind," She groaned. He just chuckled again and held his gaze on their destination. The pile of cargo crates making up the relay tower were already visible, but there would be a steep, albeit short hike to get up to where it was set to be positioned. As she watched him (for lack of anything better to distract herself with), she noticed that the flaps and curvature around his head moved slightly, like a bellows. A few secondary-school biology and physics lessons echoing in her head later, and she found herself laughing at the thought of him being like a leaf and a panting dog at the same time.

He shot her a confused glance. Without the comm line flicked on, most of the volume of her laugh stayed inside her helmet.

Beep, " _fifty percent life support._ " They began the climb up the rocky hill towards the Cargo Containers. The survey had been correct about the small cave on the ascent up, and she noted it as they climbed.

"Beep," Her lifeline reminded her, "Thirty-eight percent life support," As they ran the programming on the automated driller to reinforce the foundation.

"Beep bip bip-! Seventeen percent power remaining-" It grew more insistent as they heaved the central pillar into place.

It bleated out an insistent, "Life support critical, four percent remaining-" As she swiped the starting commands on her omni-tool and they watched the cargo-crates unfurl like flowers, and then ratchet together like pyramid of circus performers.

"Job's done," She spat across the comm line.

"Three percent-" Her suit continued. The warning had been counting down continuously since ten percent, and she was already thinking about the feel of comparatively cool eighty-degree rocks against her back instead of third-degree burn 135 degrees that it was outside.

Downhill was significantly faster. If her system wasn't running on fumes, she could have blasted her jets down in one leap. Her suit was nearly vibrating now. A wrathful cloud of flashing warning signs in multiple colors declared the decimals of percent. She cracked the helmet the moment she passed the shadow of the cave entrance, gratefully inhaling a lung-full of air that didn't smell like her own re-filtered sweat.

"1.3, 1.2 -" She pressed the manual shut-down and quickly scanned the surroundings, to be safe. Aside from a fringe of craggy rocks, the majority of the small cave was a slide of fine sand, cross-rippled as if waves of silt had splashed against the walls mere moments before.

"Nothing but traces of adhi dung. Eyw.. no signs of sentinel alloy or chemical contaminant, so likely no visitors recently. Condensation on the walls, for emergency-"

She turned to repeat the good news to Jaal, but he was looking at her with a fascinated expression, his nostrils flaring wide open.

"Shit. I should have checked on you. Come on. That was a hell of a lot of heat, are you-"

"I am fine," He insisted, closing the distance between them in one long stride to lean his face down to her neck with a long inhale.

"I,ah-" She stammered. A giddy smile spread over her face; from the feel of his breath on her neck or the heat stroke, she couldn't be certain. "I'm glad. What's this for?"

"You smell delicious," he purred, kissing her just under the corner of her jaw. The touch of his lips lingered ike static, trickling down her chest as she exhaled gratefully.

"Let me remove some of my gear before you eat me up, okay?" She murmured, popping the connections between the breastplate and pauldrons with a satisfied grunt. Whisps of steam escaped as the circulation systems contracted. "Now, you didn't spike that perfume you gave me, did you?"

A laugh rolled in the back of his throat as he smiled back at her. With a shake of his head, he leaned in to plant another kiss at the nape of her neck, the current flowing cold across her collarbone like a snowflake. "I smell a little of the Harl'an flower. The rest is you, intoxicating as ever."

"Same back at you," she stammered. She fumbled to find the main frame release, tucked up under the inner chestplate. It finally gave way, and the ratcheting closures released. The tepid air against her side was like opening a fridge compared with the heat inside the suit.

His gaze began to weigh on her. Eyes like deep lagoons scrutinized her, following the zig-zaging line of the suit. The seam opened up from collar bone to armpit and down to her hipbone; he was entranced. Over the heat of the rocks, overheated iron like an old cast iron griddle, was the bouquet of personal sents he mixed for himself, reminding her of tropical orchids and lillies. Below that, she could smell him now: the crisp smell of a trickling stream, green like damp moss after a warm summer rain. It was a surprisingly nostalgic smell, like brief glimpses of earth through a window, and tiny serenity ponds in the human sector of the Citadel.

"You really are a wonder," He said finally, tracing the top edge of her suit delicately with one finger. Pausing at the opening point, he looked back up to meet her eyes. "A creature of such strangeness and beauty."

It was all she could do to stare back at him, holding her breath between small sighs, reveling in how he looked at her as a worshipper might take in a shrine at the end of a pilgrimage. "You're pretty amazing too," she blurted out, a nervous giggle escaping as she relaxed back into the rock wall. With a coy tip of her head she looked him up and down as well, and curled her lips in to hold in a squeal of delight. "And I've been hoping to… see a little more of you."

"Is that so?"

"I mean… I've seen, but… I want to-" Her fumbled with her words, her thoughts dissolving entirely as he smiled and backed away.

"I want that as well," he replied. Methodically he removed the layers of his clothing piece by piece and carefully set them together in a pile. Watching him with hawkish interest, she marveled at the deep crevices of his chest, the strange dappling of his skin that covered him like an apple, and the ropey muscles that were always hidden by thick armor.

With a whistle she thought might condense in the warm air, she drank him in, eyes trailing down the parallel v's of his shoulders before he stood straight and turned back around to her. As her eyes dipped lower, she was caught again by the strange shape of his manhood, and felt her eyes widening despite any attempt she could muster to keep her casual demeanor.

"Do you need help?" He asked over the top of her obvious dismay.

"Oh, I - yes, actually, I," She spun once ungracefully, reaching up and over to the right-hand edge of the jet pack. "There's a tab under the right edge that will unlatch everything. Normally when the suit's powered, it's all automatic, and-" She cringed slightly as the connected interlocks between the suit's systems twisted slightly sideways, before arching backwards and opening like a seed pod, which she was more than happy to finally be shucked from.

Jaal accepted the weight of the suit and set it next to his things with barely a grunt of exertion, before turning back where she leaned with eyes half-closed from relief.

"Ninety degrees never felt so cold!" She mused, plucking at the thin liner shirt to get some semblance of a breeze against her soaked chest.

"Simply lovely," he marveled.

"Funny to think you threatened to kill me six months ago," She cooed as she rolled the tank top over her head. The thin poly-knit stuck to every surface as she fought to free herself. It finally snapped away, leaving her skin covered in beads of sweat, growing damper as Jaal stepped to her, spiralling a hand from the edge of her waist around to her lower back, her nerves lighting with hairlines of energy as he touched her.

"READING UNUSUAL ENERGY SPIKES-" SAM chimed in, before she cut him off with rapid, "Priority only setting, user logoff verification Alpha-niner-Charlie-Octo-Zebra. Two hours."

"Was that-?" Jall began to ask.

She only nodded urgently, pressing up on tip-toe to finally lock lips with him. A tingling chill and a rolling heat washed over her, as impressions of a tropical floor and dark, tranquil jungle flooded her mind.

The kiss broke like a gust of wind, and she winced at the pinpricks of rough rocks digging into her backside as he pressed into her, her sweat-drenched skin mixing with a faintly slippery film across his. Each labored breath was echoed by his, each heartbeat doubled in her chest, and the sensation of feeling his muscles moving as she tried to move her own at the same time was dizzying.

She'd been part of an Asari mind meld before. It would have been familiar to loose herself within another person's desire, but to feel their passion, their need and their sensations at the same time was as disorienting as it was exhilarating.

"I need… down," was all she could manage between brief sparks and kisses. Her inner ear was starting to play tricks with her, and the rocks were distractingly harsh.

He lowered her down with incredible tenderness and agonizing slowness, and broke away to gaze at her again. "What am I supposed to do with that reverie?" She thought. In all her years, and both sides of dark space, no other lover had cherished her like this. It made her curl up a little, suddenly protective of the last barrier she still wore, in the shape of her ugly granny-panty suit underwear. Her knuckle was between her teeth as she looked at him again, heaving quietly over her. The full length of his sex was visible now, strangely soft looking, translucent and almost spiraled in shape.

With a curious touch, she reached for it, and delighted as he shuddered beneath the faintest graze of her fingertips.

Solemn eyes cast down to her chest, her lowered himself to one nipple, and began to suck. Immediately stars crept into her vision, and her nerves lit like firecrackers. "Oh god, that-" She chanted dumbly. His hands cupped the outside of her breasts before she could shout anything stupider. With struggling hands she peeled her underwear down, gasps of shock cranked up to imploring whimpers by the time the soaked fabric was caught at her knees.

"Take me!" She screamed, and fell back against the sand with an exhausted slap as he released her nipples, moving his hands up to stroke up over her arms.

"Take you?" He questioned, arms parallel to hers and hips lowered to prop against her thigh. "An idiom?"

A quiet hum reverberated along her arms, like a motor gently spinning to life. She fought to focus on the words. "He must be messing with me… surely?" She thought. "Con… consummate?" She stammered, "umm… mate? In...ter… course?" She forced out the words between clenched teeth. Never had she felt such mortifying embarrassment, since her first dom bent her over her knee after she'd lost one too many dares back at the science academy.

With his fingers tight around her hands, he swept his lips across hers, and whispered, "If you're ready." All he needed was to look into her eyes, hazy with need and dripping with angry tears to confirm. His hands left hers, and travelled down her stomach, leaving a smooth trail through the sweat on skin and a line of twitching muscles in his wake. She was so ready for him that it hurt to relax her legs as he peered down to explore her hips. Her cunt had seeped so much she could feel the sand clinging to the underside of her legs like a bad craft project. The way he pressed his hand down was strangely methodical, testing the waters around her lips and tracing the smooth skin at the opening of her sex with a calculating look that soon softened to excitement, an eager smirk that matched with an uptick in the energy around him.

She nodded as he kneeled to enter, pulling her legs up to align. His manhood felt soft at her entrance, pliant and bulbous, like it couldn't fit. He slid up and down a little, a flash of uncertainty crossing his face before she reached down to spread herself open with two fingers.

With the first inch in, a pulse struck through her like touching a battery, leaving her charged in it's wake. The next few inches were easier, and the pulse returned as a gentle cascade, the engine-like rhythm humming in her ears growing louder, more insistent.

"I can't take much," she pleaded. "I'm close."

"We _are_ close," He groaned, hitching up her hips into his hands, fingertips spread upward against her lower back. As he rolled his hips against hers, achingly slow, she sobbed and gasped with each pass, all the muscles inside her pulling inwards, pleading for the next stroke, clenching hard against him.

"No, I mean-" She whimpered as he began to thrust a little faster, his eyes half closed as he gripped her backside harder. "Climax. I'm going to-"

She didn't get the chance to finish as he locked his lips to hers. Their tongues swirled together as everything went white-hot, moaning into his mouth as she dug her nails into his arms, her legs twitching with delight as her toes curled with the tension of hitting the peak of her climax, and dissolving into the slick throbbing feeling as he continued to pound into her as she finally fought away from the kiss and cried out.

He moaned into her neck as his fingertips clenched into her backside. Pinpricks of numbness tiptoed down her spine, and she stared at the ceiling in a relaxed haze as the world fell away, until all she could concentrate on was the slow twitch of him softening further inside her, and her inner muscles twitching in pleasant rebuke.

Gently, he pulled away to stroke her hair as he smiled down at her. "That was-"

"Amaaazing-" she interrupted drunkenly. "So worth a little bit of scars on my arms."

"Hahaha, you wouldn't _have_ those scars if you'd been more direct with me," He soothing strokes his hand down her cheek before placing a sweet kiss just above her eyebrow.

"I know," She smirked, wriggling her hips to remind him they were still intertwined, reveling in the little shiver that went through him as she licked her lips and concentrated on tightening the inner walls of her womanhood.

"I would stay with you here, like this, forever if I could," He breathed into her hair, his voice heavy with renewed longing and exhaustion at once.

"Me too," she whispered, nuzzling the side of his face as she sighed. "I just feel lucky we had this much time-"

"Closing in on your navpoint, ETA five minutes," Gil's disgruntled voice chimed in over the comms. It suddenly struck her how familiar and universal the feeling was to be caught with someone else balls-deep in you, five minutes late for an appointment.

"Re-establish login connection Alpha-Omega-Five-Five!" She rattled off at top speed. With a jolt they separated, soft waves of connection draining away, the loss of poignant as she returned to her own skin, only a single crisp set of feelings to deal with, and the shadow of a lost set of senses.

"I AM GLAD TO SEE YOUR VITALS RETURNED TO-"

"Not now, SAM!" She snapped as she did her best to whip sand from encrusted underwear and fit a salt-encrusted sweaty muscle shirt back in place. "No time, no time!" she grumbled.

Giving up on getting the undergarments back on, she rolled onto the armor and pulled the components in place as best she could. With Jaal's help (and a heaping dose of his chastising laughter) she had the armor snapped back into position, save for her helmet and jetpack, both of which were useless without power anyhow.

Peebee and Drack greeted them at the cave's entrance with equally smug looks on their faces.

She shot them down with a snap of metal on metal as she collapsed her rifle to her shoulder. "What are you two grinning about?"

Drack snorted and turned back to the Nomad, but Peebee's smile flicked between knowing and uncertainty. "Oh, um… Gil's got the Nomad working, should be close enough for you to run. SAM says your life support's completely shot."

"Yup," she replied as she snapped the helmet onto her head for the short run back to the safety of the restored Nomad.

As they piled back in for the return trip to the Tempest, she flicked the comm channel to private link to Jaal. "Shit," she giggled. "I think I left my underwear back in that cave-"

"Don't worry," He chuckled softly. "I retrieved my momentos."

Peebee continued to glance sidelong at them for the rest of the trip as Leanna's face burned red, and didn't stop looking aghast at Jaal until the Nomad safely locked into the docking ramp.


	5. He Went There

"Alright Mr. Kosta. Worst thing you ever drank."

"Alcoholic or non-alcoholic?"

"Anything," Leanna laughed from the other side of the workshop. "Doesn't even have to _technically_ be edible." She was methodically assembling new rifle cartridges on the loading press while he was busy making adjustments to the Nomad's newest round of upgrades.

"Oh that's easy then. Hydraulic fluid from a transport," He chuckled as a protesting bolt squealed across the room. "A line burst while I was wedged into a maintenance tube, and, well, you can guess the rest."

"Ugh!I thought it'd be something Krogan, to be honest."

"I think the hydraulic fluid was more digestible than Krogran food, to be honest." He peered out from under the Nomad's stripped down chassis, watching her notching the combined cartridge unit together, and pulling down the long handle with an almost bored expression on her face. "I can't believe you're packing an old relic like a Black Widow."

"Relic?" She coughed. "You have no idea how many weeks of research it took me to assemble all the schematics I needed to build this rifle. It's not a relic! It's artistry!"

"Says the woman who has to recycle all her bullets, because no one else uses that caliber."

"Ahem?" She snorted. "I think you mean cartridges. I see why some people stick to grenades."

He winced, hamming it up with a hand to his heart. "I'm wounded. But at least I'm not laying down with my ass up to the enemy when they flank us."

"Pfft. You don't need a back-up weapon when you can crush someone with pure brain power," She muttered, positioning, clamping and loading one after another without skipping a beat.

"True, I haven't seen any Kett survive to protest your effectiveness.."

"It's your turn. So spit."

"Alright. Who's better in the sack, me or Jaal?"

"I don't know what you mean-" She stammered at the press bar slipped sideways. Brass rained down around her feet, scattering bullets and powder under the workbench.

"Come on. Nomad goes down, you give commands to split up the ground crew, and then there's a convenient two hour blank in the recording logs?"

"Oh my god, Liam! Do you read through ALL the logs?"

"Only the ones surrounding a certain breakdown of my baby here," he pat the Nomad's plating with a deep thrum. "When a certain _someone_ sent down Gil to patch her up, instead of me. I'll have you know that man can't fix anything without taking it apart and messing up EVERY configuration."

"I know, Kallo complains about the same thing."

"So come on. Give me details. You were the one who said I needed to be open about all this-"

"I don't know if I'm-"

Liam had already put down the hammer, sauntering over to her workbench with a rag in his hands and a gleam in his eye that screamed mischief. After wiping the grease from his hand he gripped her wrists firmly, and raised them to her shoulders. "Now now. You were the one who was bored, and said we should play truth or consequences. If you don't tell me, then it just means." He pressed a little harder, and nudged his knee between her legs until the rolling stool she was perched on touched the wall. "I get to pick a consequence."

She gritted out a tense breath and smirked, "I did say that, didn't I? You asked, 'who's better', and honestly… I'd say you, for now?"

"For now?" He gawked. "What's that mean?"

"It means," She twisted her arms around until she had his wrists in her hands. "He doesn't have the technique down… not like you do," she whispered sweetly, enjoying the way his eyes grew stern as she explained.

"So what?" He chuckled breathily. "Do I need to hook up jumper cables for you, or somethin-?"

"Liam!" She squeaked, frantically glancing over his shoulder.

"No one else around. Half the crew's asleep, and the other half are up on the comm station dealing with black market contacts on Kadara right now. Now, you were saying-"

"Nuh-uh! I answered your question. Now it's my turn. If you HAD found that two hours of logs, would you really have wanted to listen to us getting it on like wild animals?" She cooed.

He glared back at her and snapped, "No comment.-"

As he leaned away she grabbed him by the waistband of his pants and tugged hard, until he caught himself by the palms of his hands against the wall. She wrapped her legs around his, pressing down on his thigh with a satisfied grunt as she slipped her fingers under the elastic of his boxers. "Cause I'm nice I'll give you a new question. This one's real simple," She arched her back up to whisper in his ear, "Are you jealous of me and Jaal?"

He groaned and curled his fingers up as she reached her hand further, going straight to the side of his cock and twining her fingers into the pubic hair. His shaft was rock hard, almost twitching towards her touch as she dove in.

"Ngh… I'm…"

"What's that?" She drolled. Her fingers slid over his length just once as she popped her hand free of his pants.

Now he was propped against her, elbows to the wall as his mouth hovered over her neck, puffing damp, hungry breaths onto her skin that made the hairs on her neck stand up on end. "There's your punishment," she hissed. "And mine, I guess? To be honest I'm bleeding buckets down there, I don't know what I was expecting." She let out a nervous chuckle and smiled up at him apologetically as he backed off.

"Well, maybe you could-"

"No way," She sneered. "If I have to sit through another three days of blue balls, so do you, Mr. green eyed monster."

He leaned back against the bench with a defeated grin as he adjusted his pants. "I suppose I am. So are they, then?"

"What?"

"Blue… um… " He chuckled nervously. "Are his balls… blue?"

With a hiss of unease, she looked up at the ceiling, "Well…. You saw as much as I did, didn't you-"

He shook his head slowly, "Honestly? Neither one of us was… ah… 'primed for action' you know? I took a glance, yeah. You can't help it. We're so alien to each other. But I remember thinking, "Wow… doesn't seem to be much down there."

"Oh, he's a grower..."

Liam made a face, squinting at her with a grimace somewhere between "I didn't want to hear that," and "I guess I asked for that."

"Not a show'er… and when… he um…" Her throat was tightening up and her face growing hot trying to talk about it this plainly, but she persisted, through many coughs, pauses, "um's" and stammers, "grew out, it was kinda ALL … blue.. Down there…"

His face cracked into a pained smile, as his chest heaved with silent laughs at her expense. She continued, "And… it was all transluscent… and kinda soft… and almost... "

He started to chuckle louder as her face burned pink.

"Glowed? Maybe a little?"

"Wow… um… wow… my girlfriend is dating a science experiment."

"I like to think of it as good diplomacy," She stumbled out all at once.

"Well," He sighed, wincing as he was forced to adjust his bulge again, despite the incredible discomfort his face displayed the longer she talked. "I suppose I can't get in the way of… galactic relations."

"You're terrible."

"Back at you, honey."

She hummed quietly in thought as he looked longingly back at the half-assembled nomad. "Tell you what? How about I tell you about the Asari twins I got in bed with back on the Exodus 2 station."

"Two? Really?"

"Mmmhm. I was a little drunk. They were meeting my colleagues for a summit on best practices for Prothean translations. I may have punched out a few rude bar patrons-"

"Well then, I can't be mad about a few conquests from six hundred years ago, now can I?" He dodged her fist just before she could strike him in the arm.

"It's bad form to make a girl feel THAT OLD, Liam!"


End file.
